How to Connect VCR to PC

[corkyg]

What are the best options for connecting a VCR to a computer for the purpose of dubbing VHS tapes onto the hard drive for further processing and conversion to DVD?

 

[Matthias99]

Please use the search function. People ask about video capture cards almost on a weekly basis.

Basically, you buy a capture card and plug the VCR into it, then 'record' the VCR's output and edit/master it in whatever program you want. AVSForum also has a lot of information on these topics, and doom9.org has lots of info on encoding/editing media files.

 

[corkyg]

Thanks, Matthias. I will search "capture cards/video." Search only really works efficiently if you know the right words.

I Googled it and got many suggestions - but was looking more for personal experience. Maybe its time to replace the Radeon 8500 with a new All-in-One.

Thanks.

 

[Matthias99]

For just capturing some old home movies and burning them to DVD, any cheap software capture card (including a RADEON AIW) should do the trick. VHS tapes have absolutely *horrible* image quality, so it's not like a really nice/expensive card is needed. The software that comes with most of these cards is adequate for just cutting and pasting some video clips and burning tccouhe whole thing to DVD. If you want to get more sophisticated, the sky's the limit (well, that, and the number of zeroes on your bank account balance ).

A hardware encoding card is nice if you do a lot of capturing or use it to watch live TV (as it does not eat up 50-100% of your CPU like a software card), but for occasional use it is not necessary IMO.

 

[HDTVdesignteam]

A good inexpensive solution is something like the Pinnacle Studio AV/DV software and capture card. I have built half a dozen of these systems for our marketing department and they really work fine. Check it out.
George

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/u...udio+Family/Studio+AV_DV+version+9.htm

 

[orangat]

http://www.tv-cards.com/reviews.php

I got this link from a previous thread.